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For more than 100 years the Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging a climate in which journalism can be practiced more freely and fully, stimulating high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism and perpetuating a free press.

About the Foundation

Since its founding in 1961, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation has promoted excellence and ethics in journalism. The SDX Foundation is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization that supports the educational programs of the Society of Professional Journalists and serves the professional needs of journalists and students pursuing careers in journalism.

Excellence in Journalism 2015Sept 18-20, 2015 – Orlando

Excellence in Journalism is the national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Join us in September in Orlando for training, networking, workshops and more!

SPJ Leads

SPJ News

SPJ Blogs: Newest Posts

Quill Headlines

Journalist's Toolbox

@SPJ_Tweets

Connect with SPJ

SPJ on Facebook

Upcoming Eventsand Deadlines

Become an SPJ Member

For more than 100 years the Society of Professional Journalists has been dedicated to encouraging a climate in which journalism can be practiced more freely and fully, stimulating high standards and ethical behavior in the practice of journalism and perpetuating a free press.

About the Foundation

Since its founding in 1961, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation has promoted excellence and ethics in journalism. The SDX Foundation is a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization that supports the educational programs of the Society of Professional Journalists and serves the professional needs of journalists and students pursuing careers in journalism.

Excellence in Journalism 2015Sept 18-20, 2015 – Orlando

Excellence in Journalism is the national journalism conference of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. Join us in September in Orlando for training, networking, workshops and more!

Diversity CommitteeOn both chapter and national levels, SPJ provides an open forum for the discussion of diversity issues in journalism. This committee's purpose is to promote a broader voice in newsrooms across the country and expand the depth and quality of news reports through better sourcing. Its ongoing project is the compilation of experts — primarily women, gays and lesbians, people of color and people with disabilities — through the Society's Diversity Source Book. The Society's relevance to its member is based on inclusiveness.

Reporting can be a solitary undertaking. For most stories, we contact and interview
sources one by one, by phone or face-to-face. Unfortunately, this means that
if a reporter starts off with a narrow and shallow concept, it will likely remain
that way. And even worse, well never even know what we missed. Thats
because the quality of our questions often shapes the breadth and depth of the
answers we receive. Unless the rare source challenges the way weve framed
our questions, the boundaries we bring to our stories stay put.

For some time at KQED public radio, we have sought to widen the range of our
questions and the breadth of our conversations when launching important long-term
reporting initiatives. When time and circumstances allow, we bring together
highly diverse advisory panels of citizen experts to help us explore
specific topics such as health care or education.

Educational and other institutions
Learn strategies for better reporting from these organizations:

Freedom
Forum
Features a diversity directory of journalism programs at colleges,
universities and community colleges across the country, plus news and commentary
about diversity in the news.
Latinos and Media Project
Provides information and resources about Latinos and the media.

I have found these one- or two-hour gatherings to be productive tools to boost
creativity and bust unwarranted assumptions in the crucial idea stage. They
sidestep the solitary, two-way reporting trap in which reporters talk to one
source, then another, then another, all along filtering and framing the story
through the reporter's limited understanding.

When you bring a diverse group of people together (say, an academic researcher,
a teacher, a student teacher, a PTA volunteer and a principal) and pose general
questions to them, you get a conversation going that reaches levels you might
not encounter otherwise. We use these sessions to kick off major projects and
they work extremely well. We bring listeners into our building and they provide
us with a rich source of viewpoints and fresh ideas. While we have not turned
to advisors groups to assess past coverage, their views often come out
during the conversations.

We are careful not to turn to these individuals as sources  since the
goal in our subsequent reporting is in part to test the ideas that come out
of the brainstorming session and to expand on them. But we do find ourselves
returning to some from time to time to bounce story angle ideas off our consultants,
often with good results.

This process has helped us chart a course of coverage that defies conventional
wisdom and builds on subtleties. When we set out to cover popular educational
reforms such as the drive for smaller class size, for instance, our advisors
cautioned us to look for unintended consequences, such as a growing shortage
of teachers and classroom space for the smaller, more numerous classes. Our
resulting coverage has been more complete and more nuanced. We have also become
more fair and accurate in covering angles often overlooked. For the cost of
a box lunch or morning pastries for a small group of carefully selected visitors,
we have widened our horizons and enlivened our reporting.

Raul Ramirez is executive producer of news and public affairs at KQED-FM
in San Francisco.